Nearly everyone has encountered the difficulties of transporting filled grocery bags home from the grocery store. It is most natural to carry an article the size, shape and weight of a filled grocery bag at one's side, grasped by one or two hands, with the arm(s) fully extended downward. It is not, however, possible to grasp a filled paper grocery bag from the top with a single hand or even with two hands because the side of the bag being grasped will tend to rip under the weight of the groceries the bag contains. It is therefore necessary to wrap one's arms around the circumference of the filled grocery bag or support the filled bag from underneath. Filled grocery bags are heavy and bulky, are high enough to obstruct vision when carried in this manner, and are generally extremely difficult to transport. Many of us have experienced the embarassment and inconvenience of dropping a bag full of groceries onto the ground. As we watch oranges and canned goods roll every which way, and liquids previously sealed within glass jars form puddles on the sidewalk, we wish a better way existed to transport grocery bags.
Some of us try to avoid having to carry filled bags of groceries by using shopping carts to move the bags from the grocery store check-out counter to the car. Of course, the groceries must somehow be unloaded from the car upon returning home, and few of us keep shopping carts handy in the driveway. City dwellers who rely on mass transportation or ambulation to get to and from the grocery store are especially disadvantaged, and often may do their grocery shopping only a bit at a time in order to avoid having to carry heavy bags of groceries.
Some grocery stores have recognized the problems associated with standard brown paper grocery bags, and have begun providing their customers with plastic bags instead. Handles are provided at the top of these new plastic grocery bags to make it easier to carry the bags by grasping the top of the bag at the handle. Many people, however, prefer to use paper grocery bags for a variety of different reasons, perhaps the chief one being that they are so versatile for other uses after the groceries have been taken home, removed from the bags and put away in the pantry.
The standard paper grocery bag is a wonderful structure which folds easily into a compact state for storage, and when unfolded, is capable of standing open and erect by itself on its flat bottom without need for support. Due to these unique properties, the standard paper grocery bag is used universally as a receptacle for trash or other articles. Standard paper grocery bags are inexpensive, completely bio-degradable and can hold more than can the new plastic grocery bags designed to replace them. Due to the preferences of customers and grocers alike, the brown paper grocery bag will no doubt continue to be used for many years to come.
Some in the past have devised article carriers designed to support filled grocery bags. Collapsible grocery bag carriers including a center wall serving as a handle and support, dual support platforms pivotally mounted to the center wall and extendable to horizontal positions for supporting grocery bags, and folding U-shaped support brackets for retaining grocery bags in the carrier are, in general, known. The following references disclose collapsible article carriers of this general type:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,844,279 to Kovach PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,147,286 to Bates, III et al PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,331 to Bates, III et al PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 2,531,092 to Waller PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 3,039,651 to Lang PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 3,337,102 to Shannon and PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 3,254,786 to Melville.
The Kovach patent discloses a collapsible article carrier including vertical handle bale wires 10 pivotably attached to which foldable base plates 1 and 1' and foldable cross wires 7 and 7'. U-shaped rectangular frames 4 interconnect cross 25 wires 7 and 7' and base plates 1 and 1'.
Bates, III et al '286 and Bates, III et al 331 both disclose collapsible baskets for carrying side-by-side grocery bags. These references teach using link members or bars pivotably mounted to a vertical center structure to help retain foldable bottom platforms in a horizontal position.
Waller discloses a collapsible bottle carrier including link members 40-43 connecting handle 38 via end members 33-36 to bottom sections 14 and 16 to support the bottom sections when the carrier is unfolded.
Lang teaches a collapsible molded plastic carton including bottom panels 10 and 12 pivotably connected to end panels 7 and 4a.
The Shannon reference discloses a collapsible article carrier capable of carrying a single grocery bag. The Melville patent discloses a folding carrying case having a bottom horizontal platform defining a non-skid surface.
Unfortunately, the article carriers disclosed in these references are all rather complicated. The grocery bag carriers taught by these references all include support means (such as linkages) of one sort or another connecting the upper end of a central vertical member or frame to the extremities of horizontal support members in order to provide sufficient strength to support filled bags of groceries. If the grocery bag carrier is to be truly collapsible and easy to assemble, some means to rotatably journal these linkages to both the upright member and to the horizontal platforms must be provided, adding complexity and expense to the carrier as well as increasing the number of parts and making manufacture more difficult.